


Trials and Tribulations

by MalignSensualist



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Crowley Being Crowley, Psychological Torture, Spoilers, Spoilers for Season 9, Torture, Violence, explicit - Freeform, graphic detail, just be fucking warned okay? okay, mentions of Sam & Dean, twisted/demented logic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-24
Updated: 2014-02-25
Packaged: 2018-01-13 14:21:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1229692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalignSensualist/pseuds/MalignSensualist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kevin Tran was Crowley's favorite human - was being a key term. Now, he is Crowley's favorite soul - and hopefully, he won't disappoint.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Uh... drabbles mostly, hints of a plot but no detail for it... sorry, there's just a serious lack of beautiful torture of a non-rapey sense in fanfiction
> 
> Music:  
> Mozart - Pequeña serenata nocturna

When one is immortal, eventually anything could become boring. Especially torture of the demon sort. Limited minds, limited ambition - riding tried and true until someone came along and forced a change. Change which came in the form of an unending line of damned souls, and then individual little chambers or group rooms. Whichever. Clean, neat, pristine. Orderly – as was his particular preference. But even that had its limits of enjoyment, as it was more a personal philosophy and need for sophistication above any deranged desire to see someone writhe in misery.

Not that he wouldn’t enjoy that particular affliction… but sometimes, some special little souls just needed… a bit _more_.

And being who he was, with the time constraints put upon him – what with a rabid Knight of Hell, Angels and Hunters out for his blood, on top of subjugating the incompetent muscle in hell… well, Crowley wasn’t afforded the _privilege_ of sitting around all the day long and watching a soul strung to a rack; hacked, mocked, teased, taunted and sewn back up again – over and over.

It was _boring_ – and he was a creature of finesse and development. Why expend his own energy torturing those special little cockroaches who earned themselves a slot on his ‘favorites’ list when he could sit back with the finest of aged Craig and enjoy them – tormenting themselves. 

An obstacle course of sorts. The Olympics of Torture. Offer them a light of hope and rip it away – again and again and again. 

Kevin Tran, a special little soul who really should have never ended in his clutches, but as things were – he had… and now, well… he was Crowley’s to play with. A couple of moronic hunters would call it cruel, inhumane… and truly, it was, but Crowley knew no better way to break humanity than torture. Granted, he was not the medieval sadist that Alistair was, but Crowley certainly got his kicks from torture. Generally speaking, on a more psychological level – such as the low-grade, juvenile torment he dished out quite regularly to one Moose and Squirrel. 

It was all thanks to one Moose and one Squirrel – and two wayward little angels that the dear Prophet was now in his care. And care for him Crowley intended, with all of the finesse deserving of one of his _favorite_ humans.


	2. Session 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin faces his first set of 'trials'.  
> Music: Violin covers by Peter Lee Johnson (can be found on youtube)
> 
> WARNING: it should be noted I have no hangups or 'lines' when writing fucked up shit... so if you have an easily turned stomach or are squemish, probably isn't the read for you

There was little in all of creation that could motivate a human, or a human soul, the way fear could. It was an interesting phenomenon – and motivated even more when it was fear for a loved one. It was a weakness many a demon exploited for many a reason. Crowley was one of these, it was quite the delight turning loving individuals on each other, or using one against the other, and now was no exception to that. 

Five of them total, five loved ones whose soul he snagged from their peaceful Heaven and drug down here. Not to be damned, per say, but to use against the damned (even if, were things running as they should, would not be damned). Five souls suspended for view around a circular arena not all that different from the Roman Colosseum where five participants were waiting to be released. However, only one of them truly mattered. Little Kevin Tran, who was all brain and no brawn – who nearly lost it when finding out the peril his life was in by his being a Prophet.

Crowley wanted to test that mettle, and torment the pathetic thing while he was at it – it would also, hopefully, teach the boy a lesson.

Hold nothing too dear – it only created a weakness… but it was also a surprising motivator, for humans. It was something so many occult and ethereal beings could not understand, not completely, as detached as they were from human emotion. 

Of course, there were always exceptions, but those were inconsequential here and now. 

What was important were the gates being lifted, the souls being released into the arena which was entirely fabricated. It was the glorious thing about Hell, the hypothetical was possible simply by it being considered to be possible. Making the intangible very physical indeed, at least in so far as it mattered for the soul to experience it – pain, for example. For this place, it looked like a colosseum – a battle ground, with hot sun streaming down into the sand covered pit where the souls now congregated, wary of each other and soon to have a front row view to their loved ones. Weapons lined the walls, also being eyed with a caution they would soon lose when they learned the stakes of this particular set-up. 

“Hello boys.”

The five souls turned to peer up at him, Kevin Tran taking a stumbling step back as Crowley smiled – the barest upturn of his lips – and toasted the tumbler of scotch to them. The other four were wary, but, they had no working knowledge of just exactly who he was, unlike poor little Kevin. 

“As you can see, I’ve prepared a little… welcoming gift for you.”

A sharp snap of his fingers and curtained archways at the top of the colosseum spread wide – baring the bodies strung up on racks with demons waiting to their left and right. They were bound and gagged and just lucid enough to start protesting and shouting incoherently at their loved ones in the field.

Really, what was it with humans and doing that? Complete waste of time, not like they could shout over the gag. Crowley shook his head, taking a sip from the tumbler.

“I’d like to welcome you to my little… Olympics course – of course, your beloved friends, relatives – blah blah – are here to witness. And, the lucky little winner gets to take home a prize. The loser, well… I’ll just leave that to your imagination – limited though I’m sure they are.” 

Another snap of his fingers and Crowley was gone from their sight, though still within wonderful spectating distance of them. After all, who wouldn’t want to watch the outcome of this little set up. While they couldn’t technically kill each other, they could all still feel pain (in a relative sense) and whoever was mutilated beyond capability to flee, fight or cause damage somehow was an automatic loser. 

Of course Kevin, being the smallest of the lot – the one looking the most afraid – was the reasonable first target. Take out the weakest link and then do away with each other. It was a typical brutish strategy, but little Tran – well, he had potential. Crowley saw that himself when he baited the boy into nearly undoing Moose and Squirrel’s little cage… but he hadn’t in the end. Which was the key factor – no matter what Crowley baited him with (and there was quite a bit of material to work with) – the boy still kept his wits about him. Something the demon couldn’t say about too many people.

By this point the kid should have long since been desensitized to violence, having run about with the very personifications of it. 

He also had the home advantage of knowing where they were, even if it wasn’t to expectations – and who he was dealing with. It was a bit sordid, if he was being honest. A bit disappointing to watch the kid knocked around like a puppet until (at last) he ducked away, his attempts at reasoning with the brutes failing. One of them hit another, and well, it was pretty much a given by that point. Two on one, was better odds than before. It didn’t stop the little bastard from fleeing, perspiring, bruised and bloody already from a split lip and what was likely a fracture. 

Brain over brawn, but with the right motivation Crowley felt Kevin could win this. Hence, his beloved mother strung up on the wrack – shouting what looked to be encouragement for him to annihilate the competition. Fiesty little thing she was, though it did work his nerves. 

One down. Kevin was staggering to run through the sand, they all had their shoes removed and he was only half worried about stepping on or into some trap beneath the sand as he made a mad dash for the weapons. Three were focusing on him again, but for all their strength they were slow, and well, they were kind of stupid. A lot stupid really. He wasn’t trained in weapons use, but desperation could drive a guy to crazy feats. Kevin made a blind grab for a weapon, club-like and deadly – but heavy and hard to swing.

It hardly mattered as he spun in a desperate circle, wincing at the crunch of bone that he knew didn’t really exist. It didn’t stop the guy from screaming out, it didn’t stop the images of what he knew would happen to his mother (and more) if he failed. 

Crowley watched on, amused and slightly disappointed by the light of… blood spray. It was all quite tame so far as these things go, the one went down like a led balloon and that was simply _sad_ – by a boy half his size nonetheless. Ah, well, at least this was another method of marking off the demon potentials. Might as well throw that pathetic bastards to his hounds as a chew toy the way he wailed and sobbed from one little busted shoulder. He watched them charge little Tran, the kid staggering under the weight of the mace he’d plucked so carelessly from the wall. Really, a sword would have done him better. Faster, but nothing quite measured up to bashing in skulls with a blunt object. They oozed so wonderfully – he should know, the Scots had a particular proclivity for smashing skulls. 

The dirt was muddied with blood, little Kevin had quite a few nicks himself, bleeding out from a wound on his thigh and face bruised from the backhand delivered by one brute. Still, they fell – he knew the kid had spunk, yet he didn’t _look_ victorious. He looked disgusted at what he had to do, ah that humanity, such a bugger it was, but something that would – inevitably – be stamped out. The little ass thought himself in the clear, though it was slow to dawn on him as he looked up to find his mother unguarded, the other hostages and souls gone – as well as the demons. 

Lucky day for him there was a convenient little opening made at the base just beneath where Ms Tran was held and Crowley smiled long and slow to himself as the boy bolted (more of a limping, staggering hobble at break-neck speed really) toward his presumed prize.

Silly thing, hadn’t he learnt at all from his dealings with demons and angels? Nothing was that easy. 

Kevin soon found that out, much to Crowley’s delight, as he tripped and stumbled – finding he would have to crawl the rest of his way. A rank passage, filled with the bones of small animals and a liquid run-off he’d rather not name turning soil to mud. It smelt of earth and decay, bugs wiggled in the utter dark around him, the walls of the crawl-space brushed his shoulders and hair – perhaps it was roots, perhaps not. Crowley knew he wouldn’t question or even think about it too hard as a rat scurried over the back of his leg – as another dug in for a juicy bite and he heard the boy shriek. 

Crawl and crawl and crawl he would go, on elbows and knees with too little oxygen he didn’t really need but hadn’t quite adapted to yet. His breaths were panting gasps, eyes squinted against the unending darkness as something foul and slimy brushed against his wounded and exposed thigh. It would get smaller, press in until he was wiggling like a worm seeking for an exit, the desperation sending his pounding heart into a climatic rhythm that was altogether, also, unnecessary but still a part of himself as he knew himself to be. 

Crowley could taste his fear, his anxiety – so desperate for an end as he crawled and crawled, refusing to stop though a few rats had made more than happy camp on his person, clinging to ragged clothing and chomping at his juicy flesh. The smell grew more rank, the bones more frequent, the tang of blood and rot stronger to the point he would know what it was he crawled through.

Remains, endless tunnel of remains of little things and big things and flushed into it and left to ferment just for him and Crowley smiled around his tumbler as the boy shouted for something to end, for his mother to be presented to him. To be free. Last on the list, not good marks in the kid’s favors, but Crowley could work with it being there at all. So much unlike one John Winchester who still stung, a thorn in his ass just as much a soul as when he lived. 

Innumerable time passed for Kevin, there was really no way for him to keep tabs on it, though Crowley did occasionally pop out to handle some business or another. With Abaddon wrecking havoc on everything there was little option but to run and cause a disturbance to through her blood-hound, one-track minded vengeance off his trail. It was insurmountably pleasant to return to such desperate cries and screams however, but sadly, this little portion of their fun had to come to its end – and right before a rather… trying job with one Squirrel was to take up a decent amount of his time. 

Granted the fool didn’t cause more problems. 

A snap of the fingers and Kevin found himself tumbling out of his hole, much like Alice down hers, and into a room more pitch dark than the crawl space he just vacated. Water splashed up around him and Crowley chuckled as the boy floundered and gasped until he discovered there was no depth to it. Still, it was putrid, stung his open wounds and reeked off all of the run off that it was. The hole, miraculously (or not so) was gone – and the boy would find himself walled in on all sides, left in the dark, left alone. 

Still, Crowley wouldn’t be the magnanimous creature that he was without a bit of warning.

A thought and he popped right in, nothing to give way to his presence than glowing red eyes that sent Kevin flailing for the wall and shouting at him.

“Stay away from me!”

Crowley rolled his eyes, hands draped in his pockets as he surveyed the little chamber. 

“Now, now, that is quite unnecessary. I’m sure you’ll find the accommodations quite fitting to this little leg of our jouney.” 

At boy’s incredulous look Crowley sighed and dusted a gnat away from his face.

“Enjoy your solitude, little Kevin, all the time in the world - quite literally – to think about your life, your mistakes… to think about what is to become of you. To make some decisions, if I may offer a bit of advice.” 

Kevin was silent and, finding nothing else to say Crowley snapped his fingers and flickered away – leaving behind him a bit of a gift. Well, a gift for his own enjoyment more than Kevin’s. The little box was silent as the grave, even the fluid lapping at the walls gave no reprieve from the oppressive silence. Well, nothing except the goētic (pardon his bad allusions) souls being tormented in other spots of hell. Not a constant, there and back – just when the silence would become to crushing they would crash through the boy’s thoughts, unexpected no matter how he tried to time them. It was chaotic but, perhaps, it would make the point clear.

He could think, and decide, or – if all failed – he could join them. Crowley hoped little Tran wouldn’t turn out to be as much a self-righteous prick as his previous guardians. 

Crowley left him there, with nothing but those wailing screams and his own thoughts for company in the dank, dark – disgusting box. He shouted and pleaded and begged and yet he had nothing to bargain with, and Crowley had no such humanity left to him to pity the boy enough for reprieve. Not when his shouts and sobbing echoed like music in the back of his mind. The other demons couldn’t hear him, angels wouldn’t hear him – no one but himself and Crowley. And eventually, Crowley would return to him, offer him the next step without asking into those most private of thoughts that likely chased around the Prophet’s head with so much guilt, regret and lost dreams.

A sweet tang – dare he say it – even better than the familiar burn of his Craig. 

Despite the quality of Kevin’s despair, Crowley still opened that bottle and poured out a fourth of a tumbler before sitting back yet again to enjoy the final moments of Kevin’s solitude. More time uncounted, time that had no meaning in its passage here – and likely, little Tran would be broken and incredulous of the amount of time he’d been stuck in this pit. Screaming and wailing and pleading pointlessly – before lapsing into a silence that ran and ran and ran until Crowley thought he might, perhaps, have to prod the boy. 

Good thing he didn’t have to, Kevin started up again, another loud ruckus that bled off into nothingness. A pattern, Crowley realized, and tactics changed a couple of times before options ran out and the ineffability of his situation truly sank into the boy. 

But now, it was time yet again to pay him a little visit – a much more subdued one this time around. No flailing and shouting – though he did jump, flinch back as though expecting to be attacked. Then again, perhaps it was the stream of searing light Crowley allowed to spill into the boy’s cage when he entered. Streaming down upon the carcass he dropped into the putrid water. 

He smiled at Kevin, toasted him with the crystal tumbler in his hand and slithered up to urge the boy to a stand. 

He stank, he was covered in filth and dried blood and festering wounds, bugs circled him like he was a feast and alighted only to be absently shooed away. Little Tran was trembling, cold – hypothermic were he still alive – and eyed Crowley and the corpse alternately. 

“Well, well, you look happy to see me.”

Sarcasm dripped from his words and Crowley delighted in the tick of a shoulder that earned him, though still not a verbal response. Crowley watched him a moment, sipping his drink with all the leisure of one in the comfort of their own home before smirking, a half turn of lips and gesturing to the carcass.

“I do hope you show a bit more appreciation next time, and that you took my… suggestion to heart. I might not be so… sympathetic as to bring dinner next time.” 

Crowley just got to see Kevin’s eyes widen in horror before he vanished to spectate from a distance (and away from the disgusting smell). 

Of course Kevin was having none of eating the carcass, despite how his stomach tied itself in knots with phantom hunger and his body shook with fatigue that only existed in his mind. Still, he clung to weakness – refused to eat what had obviously been a human, quite freshly dead, and huddle in his corner away from the harsh light his eyes very nearly burned from facing. 

In truth, were he alive, he would be blind – but Crowley saw no reason to spare him the visual glory of what was to come. Instead, he would wait the boy out, he would linger in that box or he would eat – and thus proceed. It was really only a matter of time before the aches of hunger won out, before primal instincts kicked in – and then Crowley could savor the self-loathing and guilt that would come with the aftershocks of an unneeded feast. 

To Crowley’s astonishment, little Tran didn’t seem to be giving in. No matter how he shuddered and felt as though he were starving – that logic yet again shined through. He knew he wouldn’t legitimately starve, wouldn’t die because he was already dead. Well, he couldn’t have that nonsense. Thinking was done and could come again later, now, it was time to act and move on.

So he gave him a bit of a prod – by way of a visit. 

“Well, darling, if I didn’t know better – I would say you were nearly glad to see me.”

Kevin grimaced, he had ben hopeful – much like Pavlov’s Dog, Kevin had been conditioned to expect the beginning of another phase of this torture by Crowley’s appearance. And truly, the demon did so lament breaking that expectancy – it stabbed his cold heart. Truly. So he offered a smile that, were he not him, would have been warm.

“Sorry to break our little schedule, but I felt you needed a bit of… persuasion to finish up this step.”

He nudged the carcass with a leather clad foot, nose wrinkling before he glanced back at the boy.

“I don’t see your hesitation, mate. The bastard’s long dead, and not getting any fresher. The more you wait, the more distasteful this part of our fun.”

“T-that’s a _person_ I’m not going to eat them!” 

Kevin sounded absolutely scandalized and Crowley chuckled, lifting one shoulder in a half-assed shrug. 

“Suit yourself. You’re welcome to rot here in this little hole for all of eternity… and I’m sure my pets would absolutely adore your company… or…”

Chin rocked, face thoughtful as Crowley offered Kevin his tumbler of Craig, which the boy took hesitantly.

“Or what?”

Crowley smiled gestured for Tran to drink up and went about his aimless pacing.

“Or, you can eat and move on, your choice… deal?”

Kevin fingered the glass in his hands, eyes wavering between demon and corpse – the filthy water all around him, the darkness, the bugs – his own festering state of existence. He closed his eyes and Crowley grinned, long and victorious as he left with a parting whisper. 

Kevin did, eventually, feast. Crowley didn’t even have to set his hounds on the boy. It was progress, perhaps small – perhaps larger later. For now, his compliance was enough. Once he started eating, it was hard to stop. As though there were a pit within his stomach, begging and begging for more of the bloody mess of muscle and fat and organ he crammed down his throat like a drowning man gasps for air. Crowley silently urged him on, watching as the sludge turned red and bloody, as Kevin’s face was painted crimson and his fingernails clogged with gore. 

Beautiful, how Crowley watched his soul becoming ever darker – one splash of patina after the next. Soon, as corroded and blackened as his own. Dead. A thing which technically ceased to exist when those humans strong enough transcended their pathetic circumstances and grasped damnation by the reigns. 

Crowley had high hopes for little Kevin as he motioned for the wall to be raised even as the boy groaned, stomach distended from the raw consumption – realization slowly dawning on him even as skin lost all pallor. 

He’d eaten a human, another person – even if they were dead, the ultimate offense, so very taboo. Crowley couldn’t keep up with the racing thoughts, the revulsion and shame and multitude of other emotions flowing through the boy. He almost didn’t even notice the door to his freedom… or, well, another step at any rate. 

Kevin staggered up, stumbled through the door and Crowley watched in amusement as the contents of his stomach came rushing back up. A pile of gore on the ground in a room with other souls, all looking on in mixed horror and terror. Distance kept even as they all turned to face the next step.

Darkness faded away, broken by the growing light of searing hot coals – a perfect walkway of them with a straight shot through an open door on the other side. But only room for one. It would be fight, ruthless and as ugly as anything else in Hell. But first, a bit of motivation. Crowley didn’t bother making his appearance as he set off the crumbling of their little bubble of reality. 

It started with tremors, like an earthquake that crumbled the stone and earth away – let it fall into darkness that boiled and bubbled with lashes of magma and flame; stunk of sulfur and brimstone – heavy with the shrieks and cries of the damned, the high picked cackling and mocks of demons and other beasts. The distant howls of hellhounds. Crowley watched as they looked on in terror – frozen like rabbits before those instincts kicked in and they dashed. 

He was quite proud of Kevin, though he hobbled and staggered it didn’t stop his blind rush. To have come so far now, it would be stupid to give up. To hesitate to throw souls who wouldn’t truly die to the coals which gave others pause in order to dart across them himself. 

The scent of burning flesh filled the air, heavy with the deliriously pained screams of those thrust into the fire as the world crumbled away behind them. Faster and faster – and Crowley thought little Kevin wouldn’t make it, was prepared to mark it off as another lost cause and move on to other (though less amusing) projects. 

That was pointless it would seem, as the boy lunged – more like a belly flop made in last ditch attempt not to join the others on the racks of hell. Though truly, Kevin could have no idea what would have awaited him there. The demon chuckled, toasted the boy though he knew he couldn’t see him and sat back to enjoy watching Kevin stumble and fall and fall.

Down and down and down – his screams lost as air fled his lungs and darkness passed him unendingly until he landed with a sickening splatter into softly rippling water.

For all aesthetic purposes it resembled a well without an exit – not a visible one at any rate – filled with slimy water teeming with little life forms intent on nibbling at him. At his skin, much like the Garra Rufa fish used in those ridiculous human spas. Nibbling and nibbling away at layers and layers of skin, harmless at first – but eventually, they could nibble their way to bone. Crowley wondered at how Kevin would endure, what sort of pretty little pleas he would throw up – who he would call out to, a God that long since abandoned his kind – the angels who tries so hard to smite his ‘friends’ – or the one person who could truly give him respite. 

It would be interesting to watch. 

He was left there, to wade or cling to the stone walls littered with blood and finer nails – be picked at by fish, brushed against by unseen slimy things lurking in the depths of that putrid water. Truly it should have been uninhabitable, but it worked. Anything could work when it did not technically exist. Leeches sucked fruitlessly at his blood, puffed up and gorged themselves even as Kevin shrieked and ripped them away, kicked at the fish – scrabbled at the walls.

He bled, he cried, nails ripped from cuticles and lodged between stone and new wounds opened, festered. Truly Hell for him, this slow rising pain, the agony and lack of reprieve. Crowley left him there, to sob and shriek and fight until it ran out of him, lapsed into those familiar silences – not given time to truly wallow in guilt of his previous actions.

That would come later.

Crowley waited him out, watched the fish chew down to the bone of a toe – watched his break off and sink to the depths as Kevin lashed out and hit the wall. Other parts were wearing thin, muscle vanishing as the fish ate and ate – others joining them now, clinging to this dead (dying) thing floating in their pond with an ever shorter burst of fight to put up against them. 

One exposed, ivory femur had developed a layer of algae and the fish had moved on to other, still juicy areas. Ribs heaved with soaked lungs through, gleaming white in the murky depths of the water, the ridges of a spine beginning to poke through the back – one foot lost to the depths of the water – before Kevin gave in. Before he broke.

 

“Crowley! PLEASE! S-stop this… let me out!” 

Raspy, barely there – little more than a whisper as a little worm wiggled its way out of the hole rotting into the side of Kevin’s neck from its nest amidst his vocal chords. Crowley almost missed it, but the sweet taste of resignation reached him and he stepped into the well through a door – wooden and slotted with bars – peering down on the sad sight with an ironic expression of acceptance and paternity. Really, it was all a mockery of it – Kevin would have known once, but the boy latched onto any semblance of reprieve at this point – desperately flailing his way toward the demon. 

“Ready to leave you say? What if you have to stay longer, darling? What then?”

“P-please, anything… a-anything… just let me out.” 

“Well, _anything_ is so very broad a term, and I am a businessman…” 

An arched brow, Kevin was desperate now – eyes wild and crazed as he attempted to drag himself onto the step.

“Anything!”

The demon chuckled, reached down and drug the boy from the water – tossing him through the door and into the deep drifts of snow and cold so deep it iced bones already moist from too long lingering in water. 

“Best keep moving, little Prophet, wouldn’t want to dig you out of the snow.” 

Crowley was gone before Kevin could get his bearings – already watching yet again, at the finish line this time. There was no hesitation in the soul, darkening so fast with the weight of those negative emotions, those actions that festered unattended as he plodded through knee-deep snow and ice. Hail and puffs of snow rained from blackened skies, winds beat at Kevin’s side – and for all of his injuries he staggered on, ice clinging to exposed bone, turning ripped and torn flesh blue and then on to black as he wandered and wandered and wandered.

And as he journeyed, he thought. He ruminated over the choices he made here, in Hell… Hell like he never imagined it could be. So very personalized, yet almost like a test – always Crowley there at the last moment to haul him up to the next step. No rescue in sight, no salvation. 

But it didn’t stop the remorse over that lost humanity – eating his fellow human, sacrificing other souls for his own. Kevin might have cried had his body the ability to form a tear. 

Still he wandered, until his eyes felt too dry, as though freezing in their sockets, until he collapsed as his femur snapped – agonizing pain ripping through his body as the ice finally weakened the bone too far to bare his weight. 

Into the snow he landed, dazed and blank faced, blank eyed as the snow piled on top of him, stewing in his own regrets – in the growing rage against Sam and Dean who let him die, at the angels and that tablet which drug him into this. AT the loss of his dreams.

So much anger, all of it going back to the Angels, to God… to the Winchesters and their insanity and need to take on and defy Hell and Heaven itself. He wept for his loss of life and salvation… pointless attempt that froze before it began even as he gave up fighting this brutality. The only thing keeping him warm the anger growing in his heart, that Crowley watched and fanned with all the delicacy of one carving into the finest marble. 

The demon grinned to himself as he sipped his Craig, drug the body from the snow and ice and prepared for a very important little chat he and little Kev would soon be having.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Goetic is from the word goet which is the origin word of Goetia used in the title 'Ars Goetia' which breaks down the demons / hierarchy ; it means to groan, lament or wail.... it's not standard used word but I felt Crowley referencing a word involved in a human breakdown of hell would be.. amusing/ironic
> 
> \- cannibalism inspired by the Jamestown Colonists history which they drove themselves mad feasting on human flesh instead of starving... to eat another human is so terribly taboo, it's like the biggest chunk out of a person's humanity you can take. Not only killing them, taking a life - brutal but... primitive and instinctual in some cases, to take the time to eat them... heh 
> 
> \- The ice in reference to a) Game of Thrones and one of Denaerys' trials but more importantly toward the center of Hell - where Satan is imprisoned - being frozen, /not/ as preachers like to talk out of their asses about - fire 
> 
> \- The crawlspace... I can't imagine anyone who would not find that pressing on their sanity
> 
> \- The box plays on sensory deprivation as a means of torture - I added in the screaming of other souls because I thought, for Kevin, listening to others - knowing what awaited him, would be frightening and unnerving - especially with the unpredictable times he would actually be able to here. Keeps the nerves frayed


End file.
